Guest Post by Morbo
Librarians all over the country are throwing a fit over a work of children’s literature that contains the word “scrotum.”
The word, which has horrified religious conservatives and prudes everywhere, appears in the recently published novel “The Higher Power of Lucky,” by Susan Patron. This tome is part of a popular genre of literature called “young adult” aimed at children 10-13.
The book won this year’s Newbery Award, a high honor for kid lit. In the book, the narrator, a 10-year-old orphan, remarks on overhearing a conversation between two men, one of whom talks about a dog being bitten on the scrotum by a rattlesnake.
The predictable firestorm has followed. The New York Times reported:
The book has already been banned from school libraries in a handful of states in the South, the West and the Northeast, and librarians in other schools have indicated in the online debate that they may well follow suit. Indeed, the topic has dominated the discussion among librarians since the book was shipped to schools.
Dana Nilsson, a librarian in Durango, Colo., is eager to protect her flock from the dreaded scrotum invasion. “This book included what I call a Howard Stern-type shock treatment just to see how far they could push the envelope, but they didn’t have the children in mind,” Nilsson wrote on a web-based listserve for school librarians. “How very sad.”
No, what’s sad is that the children of the Durango schools are struck with this moronic prude for a librarian. “Scrotum” is hardly a vulgar or slang term. If anything, it sounds clinical, and for a reason: It is clinical. (How I wish we could get Stern and other shock jocks to use “scrotum” instead of what they actually say!)
For all those people who are freaking out because they fear little Jacob and Emma are going to run to the teacher or mom and dad demanding to know what a scrotum is, here’s an easy answer: The teacher says, “It’s a body part found on men and boys. Ask your mom and dad about it tonight.” Mom and dad can break the news to the kids gently with an age-appropriate explanation — and perhaps even go to the public library and get a child’s book about anatomy (assuming they have not all been thrown out). Children need to learn these terms some day, and it’s better that they start with clinical words than the other ones they will eventually pick up.
I did a search for stories about this little flap on Google News and was dismayed by what I found: Many of the stories were from foreign media outlets, and the tone was one of ridicule. Those crazy Americans! They’re afraid of the word scrotum!
The criticism is more pointed because of the sexual double standard that permeates our popular culture. We consume porn like maniacs, leer at salacious music videos and sit zombified in front of our TVs nightly watching moronic shows about sexy doctors who have nothing better to do than fornicate — and then we go crazy when the word “scrotum” appears in a kids’ book. I’m concerned about inappropriate sexual messages reaching children, but this isn’t an example of that. It’s a clinical term used in a story about a dog, for heaven’s sake.
“The Higher Power of Lucky” received an initial press run of 10,000 copies. When the Newbery Award was announced, the publisher ordered an additional 100,000 copies. My guess is that this brush with censorship will probably only increase demand for the book. Try as they might, the prudes won’t be able to keep this scrotum under wraps for long.